Douay

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A English translation of the Bible made by Catholic scholars at Douai in the early seventeenth century, based on the Latin Vulgate
2. The Catholic version of the Scriptures rendered into English at the college in Douai, and later paired with the Rheims New Testament
3. An early modern English Bible translation produced by Catholic exiles in Douai, widely used by English-speaking Catholics for centuries

Etymology: The word is a spelling of Douai, the town in northern France, and its meaning comes from the place. The town's name goes back to a Gaulish personal name, Dous, with a Gallo-Roman suffix "-acum" attached, so the name meant something like the estate or settlement of a man called Dous. Medieval Latin turned this into "Duacum", and French wore it down to Douai. In the sixteenth century, English Catholic exiles set up a college at Douai, and the Bible they produced there, the Douay-Rheims translation, took the town's name. "Douay" became the common way of referring to that English Catholic Bible, so a town in France ended up naming a book in English.